The Harry Starke Series: Books 1-3: The Harry Starke Series Boxset Read online

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  Carter Shooting Supply is out on Highway 58, and that was where I had Mike make our first stop. I picked up another Smith and Wesson M&P9, a couple of extra mags, and a box of shells. I fired a couple of mag fulls in their range, swapped the back strap, and fired a couple more. Satisfied that all was in order, I reloaded it and slipped it into the Blackhawk, the grip facing forward. I winced as pain speared down the arm when I lifted it to allow access to the holster. Damn!

  From Carter’s, Mike drove me to the Sorbonne. My car was still right where I’d left it. I had Mike crawl around, looking underneath it to see if the damn thing was going to blow up when I started it. As far as he could tell, all was as it should be. I unlocked it, popped the hood and gave the engine compartment the once over. Nothing. I got in, took a deep breath, and hit the starter button. The engine awoke with a growl, and I felt something akin to a great weight being lifted off my chest. Relief? I guess so.

  Back at the office, Kate, Amanda Cole, and the rest of the crew were all waiting for me; even Lonnie Guest. I walked in through the front door and immediately felt like some kind of idiot; they just sat and stared at me, like I was... well. I dunno. Unnerving, is what it was.

  “What the hell is this?” I growled, at no one in particular. “Some kind of convention? Bob, Kate, Amanda, Tim, Ronnie, Jacque, yeah, you, too, Lonnie, conference room. Mike, old son, coffee all round, please. Then you can come and sit in. Jacque, you need to record everything then have Margo type up the transcript and see that everyone gets copies, including Amanda.”

  For some reason, I was in an unusual, for me, no-nonsense kind of mood. Maybe it was the fact that I could barely move either of my arms, and that pain was coursing through them. Even my fingertips were hurting, throbbing. I went to my office, grabbed the legal pad from the desk drawer and joined everyone else around the conference table.

  “Okay, people,” I said. “Where the hell are we? Who wants to go first? No one? Okay, then I will.”

  I grabbed my coffee, sipped, nodded at Mike, took a deep breath, and flipped open the pad.

  “Okay. Before we begin, I want everyone to understand that everything said in this meeting is confidential. If anyone has a problem with that, they need to leave, now. Amanda?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay, let’s start with what we have, and then move on to what we don’t. We have Tom Sattler dead, murdered, and we have seven suspects, including Gloria Sattler’s boyfriend, Richard Hollins, and Sattler’s girlfriend, Wendy Brewer. Hollins has an alibi, of sorts, and Wendy Brewer is a washed out basket case. Neither one of them rank high on the list as far as I’m concerned, at least for now. Any thoughts, anyone?”

  I looked around the table, rubbed my left shoulder, took a sip of coffee, and continued.

  “That leaves us with Gloria Sattler, Stephanie Sattler, Sal De Luca, and the three partners, one of whom was badly beaten yesterday. Kate, how is Cassell, by the way?”

  “They released him early this morning. He’s at home.”

  I nodded. “We think, no, we know, that Sal De Luca was responsible for the beating, and for the break in here last night. As to which one of the five might be responsible for Tom’s death, it could be any one of them, or none of them. I don’t think it was De Luca. He had big money tied up in the fund. I can’t see him jeopardizing that. That leaves the two Sattlers and the three partners. Now, as Kate will tell you, we’re not supposed to be fooling with the missing $350 million, only Sattler’s murder, but there’s no doubt in my mind that the two are connected. Kate?”

  ‘That’s true,” she said. “If we can find out what happened to the money, I think we’ll know who killed him. My biggest concern right now is safety. Someone tried to kill Harry last night and I think they’ll try again. I’m going to see De Luca when we’ve finished here. If I can, I’ll put a stop to it right there. No, Harry, you’re not coming with me. I don’t trust you not to kill someone, and I can’t have that.”

  “Kate,” I said. “I’m going with you. If not me, Bob will go. You can’t go and face those three bastards by yourself.”

  Bob nodded.

  “I’m not going alone. Lonnie will go with me.”

  I looked skeptically at the big sergeant. Dumb as a box of rocks he might be, but he was an imposing figure; overweight, but imposing nonetheless. He grinned at me across the table. I glared back at him.

  “Lonnie, if you let anything happen to–”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Harry,” she interrupted. “I’ve been handling assholes like De Luca all my life. I can handle him.”

  “Yeah, you probably can, especially the way we left him, right, Bob?” I grinned at him; he grinned back at me.

  “No, Kate. It’s Gino and Tony I’m worried about.” Then I noticed the evil look I was getting from Amanda.

  Damn, Amanda. Lighten up. I’m just concerned she doesn’t get killed. Geez. Who needs women?

  “Well, don’t be,” Kate said. “And what do you mean, the way you left him?”

  “You’ll see,” I said.

  “Oh boy,” she said. “Okay. Lonnie. Let’s go.”

  They left, and so did everyone else, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  Chapter 24

  I spent the rest of the morning with my notepad, trying to make some sense of what we knew so far, which wasn’t much. So what exactly do I know?

  1. I have five persons of interest: Gloria, Stephanie, Steiner, Cassell, Westwood.

  2. I have two more of lesser interest: Hollins and Brewer. Then I have Sal De Luca and the two ugly sisters.

  3. Gloria and Stephanie were both in the vicinity, but they have mutual alibis, so they cancel each other out; they don’t have alibis. Do they have motives? Possibly. Child sexual abuse would give either one or both of them a very strong motive.

  4. Steiner, Cassell and Westwood don’t have alibis, thus they all three have opportunity. As far as I can tell, none of the three have motives, other than greed, and they are all greedy. As to means? Nope. According to their cell phone records, none of them were there at the time Sattler was killed, but as I’ve said before, that only means their phones weren’t there.

  5. Sal Deluca is responsible for the attack on Cassell, the break in to this office, and for my being shot. All that being so, I don’t think he has a motive to kill Sattler, nor the wherewithal to steal the 350 mil, but....

  6. Brewer doesn’t have opportunity, means or motive. She lost the most by Sattler’s death. She lost her meal ticket and she’s also a borderline basket case.

  7. Richard Hollins has an alibi of sorts, but as Gloria’s boyfriend he would also have a motive (the child abuse).

  8. We have three questions:

  A. Who out of the seven is most likely the killer? I have no earthly idea.

  B. Who is most likely the thief? Again, I have no idea.

  C. How many solid clues do we have? Not a one. Not a single, solitary one. The hair we found beneath the body could have been there for weeks. The gun was wiped clean, and we know there was a second shot fired from it, but we don’t know what happened to it. We know why it was fired to make the killing look like a suicide, but not by whom.

  I got up from my desk, wandered into the outer office, stared at each of my staff in turn, not really seeing any one of them. I made myself a cup of coffee, went back into my office, flopped down in my chair, and stared, hypnotized, at the notepad.

  Two weeks. Two whole weeks, and what have we got? Not one single damned thing that we didn’t have the day after Tom was murdered. That’s crazy. Geez, we need a break in the worst way!

  I leaned back in my chair, put my feet up on the desk, and stared up at the ceiling; it helped not a whit.

  It was right on noon when Kate called. She said she’d pick me up and we’d grab lunch at the Flatiron Deli. She walked into my office just ten minutes later.

  “So, how did it go?” I said, almost before she’d set foot inside the door. “Where
’s Lonnie?”

  “I dropped him off at Amnicola.” She smiled as she said it. “As to how it went, I’ll tell you over coffee and a sandwich. Let’s go.”

  I grabbed a lightweight jacket and followed her out the door.

  The Flatiron Deli is just a couple of blocks away from my office, housed in the building that bears the same name. It’s a beautiful structure with a footprint shaped like... a flatiron. The food is excellent: they make the best BLT in town. We both ordered one of those. I had a cup of coffee. Kate had a Coke.

  We grabbed a window seat,

  The sun had disappeared behind a bank of rolling black clouds that had descended like a soggy gray blanket upon the crest of Lookout Mountain. It looked for all the world like Mount Doom. Within minutes, the rain began and the streets were soon deserted.

  As soon as she sat down, she picked up her sandwich and began to eat. I looked at her like she was stupid.

  “Hey. You. Miss Piggy. Are you going to tell me or do I have to beat it out of you?”

  “Tell you what?” She looked up at me, stopped chewing, her mouth full. “Oh that,” she mumbled through the food.

  She finished chewing, took a drink from her Coke, looked at me and grinned.

  “Let me say this,” she began. “You, Harry Starke, are about as popular with our friend Sal De Luca as a raccoon in a chicken run. What did you do to him? His hand is all bandaged and his head has a knot on it the size of a basketball.”

  “I can only take credit for the hand,” I said, modestly. “Bob whacked him on the head with that little bat he’s so fond of. So... what did he say?”

  “Not much. He swears he had nothing to do with the break-in, your injuries, Cassell’s injuries, or anything else. His henchmen tell the same story, and they all have alibis for last night. They were all playing poker….”

  “‘With a half-dozen of their friends.’” I chimed in along with her.

  She grinned, nodded, and took a big bite out of the sandwich and looked at me, chewing vigorously.

  “You like that, huh?” I said, “The sandwich. You need to take it easy. You’ll choke yourself.”

  “I’m hungry,” she mumbled through a mouthful. “I didn’t eat this morning.”

  “So, I said. We have nothing, right?”

  “Yup! Nothing! Oh, by the way. He did say that if you set foot inside his restaurant again, he will kill you.”

  We finished our food, sat and talked for a while, mainly about how little we had to go on, and then she had to go back to the Police Department. I decided to call it a day.

  I dropped back by the office, let them know where they could find me, should the need arise, and then I headed home. I needed a break, some food, a little scotch whiskey and some serious sleep.

  I drove home that afternoon in a kind of daze. The situation with De Luca was bothering me more than a little, and I had an idea that things were about to get worse. Nobody likes to lose money, and De Luca was no exception. Twelve million dollars could, and probably would, sink him with the mob, and I didn’t mean figuratively. He could literally end up at the bottom of the Tennessee, and I couldn’t see him allowing that. He would do what it took to get his money back: more torture, even murder.

  It was almost four o’clock when I closed the garage door and walked up the stairs to my living room. It was peaceful. The view across the river through the light rain had a settling effect on my turbulent mind. I dropped my document case on the coffee table – I’d brought my papers home with me for once, something I rarely ever did – went into the bedroom, stripped, and took a shower.

  Back in the living room, I turned on some music, spa music. I do that sometimes, mostly when I can’t see the wood for the trees. It helps me concentrate. I poured myself a stiff jolt of Laphroaig and settled down on the sofa in front of the big window, and then goddamn it, I fell asleep.

  When I awoke, it was dark outside. The rain had stopped. I looked at my watch. It was eleven o’clock. I’d slept for six solid hours. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep after that, so what to do?

  I turned on Channel 7 News just in time to watch Amanda sign off from the evening news. I sighed, turned off the TV, went into the bedroom, and lay down, knowing good and well it was a waste of time.

  I lay staring up into the shadows, thinking about Amanda, what she was doing. I looked at the bedside clock. It was eleven-fifty. She was probably on her way home. Go on. Call her. It’s worth a shot.

  I was right. She was in the car.

  “Harry?” She sounded puzzled.

  “Yes. Where are you?”

  “I’m on Market, near the Choo Choo. I’m on my way home. Why?”

  “I thought you might like to talk.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  I laughed. “That’s not a good word to use right now....”

  “Oh wow, yeah. Sorry, Harry. Are you hurting?”

  Okay, Harry. Play it for all it’s worth.

  “Um. Yeah. It’s really bad. I mean really bad.”

  She laughed. “Liar.”

  “Damn. Well okay. What I meant was I thought you might come over here. Have a drink. Talk....”

  “Harry. It’s almost midnight and I have to be at the station by seven in the morning.”

  “Okay. It was just a thought.”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Wait.... Pour me some scotch, no ice, not yet. It’ll melt before I get there. I’ll see you in thirty minutes, or less.” She disconnected.

  I smiled.

  Things are looking up.

  She was still wearing her on-air clothes and makeup, and she looked great, a little pasty around the face from the foundation, but great just the same. She was wearing a short, lightweight white jacket over the simple, sleeveless, light blue dress she’d worn on the set.

  I opened the door for her and took her in my arms. Her hair was stiff from the spray used to keep it in place while on the air, but I didn’t care. I was just pleased to see her.

  “Get away from me,” she said, laughing and pushed me away. “I stink, and I need a shower. Now look. I can’t stay all night. I can’t go into work in the same clothes. I’m gonna have to go home... sometime.”

  “Hmmm. Sometime is good,” I said as I pulled her in close. “Just not for a while.”

  She giggled, wriggled out from under my arms, and ran into the bathroom and locked the door.

  I smiled, then grimaced. No, I wasn’t lying. The bullet wound was hurting like hell. Funny thing, though. Thirty minutes later, it wasn’t hurting at all. Well, I was by then, as they say, ‘feeling no pain.’

  Chapter 25

  I’d had no intention of going in to the office early that Thursday morning. In fact, I’d asked Jacque to cover for me. It was, therefore, something of a surprise when my cell phone rang at ten after nine.

  “Hey, Kate. What’s up?”

  “Westwood’s dead. They found him thirty minutes ago. You dressed? I’m outside your front door.”

  “Goddamn it,” I said, dumbfounded. “No. I’m not, not yet, but you can come on in. I’ll open the door.” Fortunately, Amanda had left early to get to the station in time for the early morning broadcast.

  Thanks for small rewards.

  All I had on when I opened the door were my boxers but she didn’t seem to notice. She rushed in, headed for the kitchen and the Keurig, punched up a coffee, and then started pacing the kitchen as she drank it.

  “Come on, Harry. For God’s sake, get a grip. It’ll take us at least thirty minutes to get up to Brow Road and I want to get there while Doc Sheddon is still there....” She looked around the kitchen, living room, then said, “Did... you have company last night?”

  I ignored the question, went into the bedroom, threw on a pair of jeans, a pale blue golf shirt, and loafers. I went back into the kitchen, grabbed a coffee, grabbed her arm, and hustled her to the door.

  She grinned. “So who wa
s it?”

  “None of your damned business. Now get in the car and drive.”

  She was right. The drive up the mountain took even longer than we expected. It was almost ten o’clock when we arrived at the house on Brow Road. Doc Sheddon was putting away his gear and the CSI techs were already about their business, but that all stopped so that we could view the scene.

  James Westwood was a sad-looking shadow of the man he had been. The blue eyes could no longer be seen; the lids were glued shut by dried blood. The once white hair was a tangled mess, wet, streaked with red. The tan, especially on his face, was now a dirty shade of pallid gray.

  Dressed only in a pair of bloodstained boxers, and seated on a high-back dining chair, he was a pathetic caricature of the self-confident financier that had met us at the door only a week before.

  Whoever it was that had done this thing had intended to get results. He was held upright in the chair by Duct Tape. His hands were taped to his thighs; his ankles were taped to the chair legs.

  How long he had been like that was anybody’s guess. My own was that he had suffered a long time before he gave out. I looked at Kate. Her face was pale, her eyes hard, her lips set tight, turned down at the corners, disgusted.

  I felt someone come up beside me, and I turned to find a sad-looking Doc Sheddon. His hands were in his pants pockets, his chin down, almost to his chest as he looked over the top of his glasses.

  “Hello, Lieutenant, Harry. It’s a bad one. I’ve not seen anything like it since Viet Nam.”

  “Tortured, right?” I said, looking down at the body.

  “I’d say so, and quite professionally. He must have suffered a great deal of pain.”

  “And then they killed him?” Kate said.

  “No. I don’t think so. I’ll know more when I’ve done the autopsy, but I’m pretty sure he died of a heart attack. The cuts were not meant to kill, just to inflict the maximum amount of pain... and terror. It was torture pure and simple, and it got out of hand, I’d say.”

  He was silent for a long moment, and then, “The fingers... they’re all broken. I haven’t counted, but there must be at least thirty cuts. None of them deep, but all extremely painful, and bloody. Look at the skin under the tapes around his wrists and ankles. They’re rubbed raw where he struggled. Very nasty,” he said, shaking his head.